Crimetime

For the Planetarium at Vitenfabrikken in Sandnes, Norway, SUPERFLEX created Crimetime – a new narrative genre, which has been dubbed "starplay". Crimetime presents the audience with the dimension of time travel, but rather than the creation of the universe, Crimetime evolves around a local story about Speedway Stig, a member of the notorious West Land Mafia which ravaged the Jæren region on the Norwegian west coast for years. Inspired by Thomas Ergo's documentary book "Kjeltringer" (Nordic Crime Chronicle, 2008), Crimetime tells the actual events (by way of a voice-over) of Speedway Stig’s pilfering around Jæren ten years ago while the stars above the audience shows the exact constellations accompanying the events of Speedway Stig at any given time. The planetarium is equipped with a Carl Zeiss SKYMASTER ZKP 4 projector – one of the most advanced planetarium projectors for small and medium-sized domes capable of showing the exact position of the stars at any given location and time, 10.000 years back and ahead of our time.

Crimetime was a collaboration with art consultant Anne-Marte Eidseth Rygh and Sandnes Municipality. The speak was done by Berglot Bleken, script by Nikolaj Heltoft and sound engineering by August Engkilde.

CRIMETIME - a starplay by SUPERFLEX in the planetarium at Vitenfabrikken in Sandnes, Norway.

"He has painted his face with shoe polish and robs the bank with a starting pistol from the speedway track"

Vitenfabrikken in collaboration with art consultant Anne-Marte Eidseth Rygh and Sandnes Municipality, invited SUPERFLEX to create a work for Vitenfabrikken. SUPERFLEX has responded by launching an entirely new genre, which has been dubbed "starplay", created specifically for Vitenfabrikkens planetarium.

CRIMETIME presents the audience with the dimension of time travel, but it is not the creation of the universe SUPERFLEX highlights. We meet rather the very local story about "Speedway Stig", a notorious member of the criminals "west land mafia" which for years ravaged Jæren on the Norwegian west coast. Rasmus Nielsen of SUPERFLEX says:

-In CRIMETIME we see the underworld in a cosmic perspective. We show how the stars were exactly that morning in 1999 when Speedway Stig robbed the bank in Nærbø. We use the planetarium as a large magnifying glass and focus on 90 seconds of local history.

SUPERFLEX has found insipiration in Thomas Ergo's great documentary book "Kjeltringer" (Nordic Crime Chronicle, 2008) and CRIMETIME is thus based on events that actually took place in Jæren ten years ago. But in the starplay it is the audience itself that controls time - or so it feels, while the stars pass through above.

Sven Gundersen from Vitenfabrikken says:

"We have always been very interested in the time here at Vitenfabrikken. The planetarium can travel thousands of years back and forth, but in this story it is a bank robbers stopwatch that is vital. So what time is important in a historical perspective? This is just one of the questions that this story asks."

"In Focus Bank on the square in Nærbø the clock is still ticking. Speedway Stig wants the money, he wants all the money"